simple <> comparison of dates

I have two form fields with dates in the mm-dd-yyyy format. I need to validate that date2 > date1. How might I make this comparison?

Code:

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if (new Date (date2) > new Date (date1)) {
...Do Something...
}

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Code:

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d1="12-18-2009";
d2="12-15-2009";
date1=new Date(d1.split("-")[2], d1.split("-")[0], d1.split("-")[1]);
date2=new Date(d2.split("-")[2], d2.split("-")[0], d2.split("-")[1]);

if(date1<date2){do something}

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Thanks for the feedback...here's what i finally did to get it to work...

Code:

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var startDate = $('#start_date').val().replace('-','/');
var endDate = $('#end_date').val().replace('-','/');

if(startDate > endDate){
  // do stuff here...
}

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I'm using jQuery, hence the $(..)... syntax

This does not use a JQuery solution, but consider this:

Code:

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function cvrtDate(d) {
  var t = d.split(/\D+/)        // splits on any character(s) between digits
  var dt = new Date();
  dt.setFullYear(t[2],(t[0]-1),t[1]);
  return dt;
}

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Advantage is that the argument passed to the cvrtDate function can be any of the following formats
'1/1/2010'
'1-1-2010'
'1.1.2010'
or even
'1/1-2010' or any other non-digit separator.